ept his honour with
his hands a Cain--and a good many branded faces would be seen in some
streets. I laughed at the fancy, as I strode down the garden walk.

And yet, perhaps, I was going to do a foolish thing. The Lieutenant
would still be here: a hard-bitten man, of stiffer stuff than his
Captain. And the troopers. What if, when I had killed their leader, they
made the place too hot for me, Monseigneur's commission notwithstanding?
I should look silly, indeed, if on the eve of success I were driven from
the place by a parcel of jack-boots.

I liked the thought so little that I hesitated. Yet it seemed too late
to retreat. The Captain and the Lieutenant were waiting for me in a
little open space fifty yards from the house, where a narrower path
crossed the broad walk, down which I had first seen Mademoiselle and
her sister pacing. The Captain had removed his doublet, and stood in his
shirt leaning against the sundial, his head bare and his sinewy throat
uncovered. He had drawn his rapier and stood pricking the ground
impatiently. I marked his strong and nervous frame and his sanguine air:
and twenty years earlier the sight might have damped me. But no thought
of the kind entered my head now, and though I felt with each moment
greater reluctance to engage, doubt of the issue had no place in my
calculations.

I made ready slowly, and would gladly, to gain time, have found some
fault with the place. But the sun was sufficiently high to give no
advantage to either. The ground was good, the spot well chosen. I could
find no excuse to put off the man, and I was about to salute him and
fall to work when a thought crossed my mind.

'One moment!' I said. 'Supposing I kill you, M. le Capitaine, what
becomes of your errand here?'

'Don't trouble yourself;' he answered with a sneer he had misread my
slowness and hesitation. 'It will not happen, Monsieur. And in any case
the thought need not harass you. I have a Lieutenant.'

'Yes, but what of my mission?' I replied bluntly. 'I have no
lieutenant.'

'You should have thought of that before you interfered with my boots,'
he retorted with contempt.

'True,' I said overlooking his manner. 'But better late than never. I
am not sure, now I think of it, that my duty to Monseigneur will let me
fight.'

'You will swallow the blow?' he cried, spitting on the ground
offensively. 'DIABLE!' And the Lieutenant, standing on one side with his
hands behind him and his shoulders squared,